It’s so far from the truth.
“Listen,” I say, “you can believe me or not, but I’m the only one my mother will listen to. If you wish her to be convinced of it, you’d best tell me.”
He finally looks intrigued, motioning me to the table.
I oblige, immediately suffocated by gingery musk.
“I’ll try to make this as clear for you as I can,” he says. “Stop me if I get ahead of myself.”
“I think I can manage.”
His glance is a subtle challenge, and he gestures to the South on his map. “Tell me, then, why everyone wants to call this place their own.”
He hardly waits for an answer before opening his mouth again, apparently expecting me to say nothing, but I cut him off. “It’s the Harosh,” I say, pointing at the territory far down the meandering line of the Izahar River, deep into what’s nearly the ends of the earth. “That’s where the treasure is said to be found. Gold and copper. Iron and cobalt and diamonds. All kinds of wealth, the things many Northern men have chased but never succeeded in reaching.”
Lark appears impressed. “You read your books.”
“I’m studying for the exams. There’s also a rather depressing aria my friend likes to sing about ill-fated lovers long ago, where the girl was killed by her father and the boy, a knight, was banished to fight there. It seems we find it both a terrible and wonderful place.”
“It is,” Lark agrees.
In truth, this is all I know of the Harosh. No one mentions it. It’s more a myth.
“But what does this have to do with peace?” I ask.
“Nothing immediate,” he says, still pleased, “I simply wanted to hear your answer to that question.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “I’m not here to play games with you. If you’d like a history lesson, I can bring my textbooks next time.”
“I’d be curious to see what’s there.”
“Lark, what is your father’s proposal for peace?”
He pauses, fiddling with the edge of the map. “Tell me about Resya first.”
I suck in a breath, trying to save patience, but he seems bent on historical and geographical discussion, circling whatever hope-filled idea he’s dangling. “Resya? It’s the jewel of the South. Lush in the north, filled with mountains, and trickling to desert in the south. It has gardens and arid steppes and grand operas.”
“And does our king fight the Nahir? Does he love the North?”
I hesitate, unsure if this is a trap or not.
Lark lowers his voice. “The answer, Cousin, is he does not. He won’t help his royal friends. He’s been betrayed by both North and South, left to fend for himself, and he will bleed for neither cause.”
The truth of this statement is blunt and startling. I know Resya has been, at best, tolerated as a fellow royal kingdom, and at worst, suspect of being too weak, with the unhelpful sentiment growing round it. But now Lark is telling me these alarming facts with no pretense. No mystery or question about it.
King Rahian is refusing to fight the Nahir cause.
“Are you telling the truth?” I ask. “If so, you cannot speak a word of it here. I beg of you!”
Something melancholy settles on Lark’s face, a tad sympathetic. “You are my blood, Cousin. I only tell you the truth. But sooner or later, the North will figure out the game. Rahian has refused to allow Northern armies to launch from his borders. Instead, they’re forced to sail all the way to Havenspur, here.” He indicates on the map. “From there they have protected routes to transport supplies inland. A narrow point of advance. It’s been generations since a large enough force amassed to attempt further south. But now there are aeroplanes and armoured carriers. In this new war, swift armies will bring victory, and using Resya’s wide border as a staging ground could make the difference.”
“And your father’s proposal?”
“To sway Rahian’s neutrality. To allow the Safire and Northern armies into his realm and bring about a shorter conflict. Your mother could do this.”
Realizing he still means to implement war, I sigh at the map in frustration. “You lured me here with a different promise,” I say. “You said there was a way to peace.”
A long pause quiets the room. “There is.”
I glance up, hungry for hope.
“Negotiation,” he explains.
“Negotiate?” I ask, now confused. “With who?”
He hesitates. “The Nahir.”
“The Nahir!”
I’m gaping at him as his warm hand finds my arm, gripping firmly. “Yes, Cousin. Listen to me. Seath has never been allowed to make his case to the Royal League. No one from our cause has ever been allowed to speak the truth of what’s happening. But if they could share their side, perhaps then the North—all of you, so far away—would see our dark reality. You’d see what I have seen.”
His dogged gaze is terrible bait. “And what, exactly, have you seen?”
“Those ridiculous feathers being worn in Landore? They’re from the golden pheasants of Thurn. Beautiful birds with a long, scarlet plume. The Landorians have taken to slaughtering them and sticking them in their hair, simply because they can. Soon there won’t be a single one left.” He leans closer, ginger scent curling round us. “And how much else has been taken these past hundred years? Our land? Our traditions? What are bullets in birds next to bullets in people?”
Something sickens within me, alongside disbelief. “How on earth do you know all this?”
He holds his tongue, his earnest gaze struggling between fear and defiance—though of what, I don’t know. And then it dawns on me. The passing words he spoke. I feel a deeper horror settling cold on my skin, his hand still gripping my arm like he might convince me by simply not letting go.
“You said Seath has never been allowed to speak to the League,” I whisper. “You said no one from our cause has ever been allowed.”
His brown eyes flicker. “Yes.”
“Stars, you’re—”
“Nahir.”
He says it so quickly, like a fired bullet, that for a moment it’s as if he hadn’t spoken at all. I stare at him. The roundness of his face, a pink blush creeping beneath the olive tone of his skin. The way he swallows tightly, uncertainty beneath the defiance. I sit there, stunned, and realize he’s as stunned and bewildered as am I.
I’m not sure he meant to say that out loud.
“You…,” And I trail off. I have no words, no framework for a confession like this.
He offers me the bottle of wine lamely.
“But you’re—”
“I simply am,” he interrupts, glancing at the closed door, his voice lowering again. “And you can’t tell anyone, Cousin. No one knows, not even Havis, but you and I—we’re family. I know you’ll keep my secret. I want to help you … and perhaps you can help me.”
“Help how?” I repeat, my overwhelmed voice sounding only half-formed.
The Nahir were not supposed to look like Lark Gazhirem.
“You don’t want war, and neither do I,” he insists, quietly earnest again. “No one truly does. What I want is a negotiation. The world’s finally taking notice of us, desperate to avoid what will come, and now at last is the time. But I can’t do this on my own. No one here will listen to me—certainly not your mother. I see that now. But you—”
I shake my head wildly. “I don’t understand, Lark. Why the stars would you tell me this?”
“Because you have power! You’re young, yes, but I learned how to resist at your age, how to fight. You can, too. The old want to wage war, but we aren’t like them, Cousin. We can do better.”